


A Whole 'Nother Set of Nightmares

by seraphina_snape



Category: Jurassic Park (Movies)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-16
Updated: 2010-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphina_snape/pseuds/seraphina_snape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alan has nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Whole 'Nother Set of Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in June 2007. Written for the smallfandomfest on LJ.

It isn't the dinosaurs themselves that he can't stand.

In his own way, Alan still loves them. He's still awed when he thinks back to that moment he'd first laid eyes on a real life dinosaur in Jurassic Park. Awe, baffling and all-consuming, but mixed with respect for a species about which they knew not nearly enough, certainly not enough to breed and market them in a large scale petting zoo. And trepidation, an itchy feeling under his skin that had told him something wasn't right, something was going to happen, and it wasn't a good thing.

Later, after his first week back home, he'd given himself a small amount of satisfaction in thinking ‘I told you so’ to himself and hoped that the nightmares would stop soon.

>>>

Alan sits up, gasping.

It's warm in the tent, but the sweat on his forehead and his back isn't a result of the Montana summer warmth trapped in canvas and plastic. Alan raises a hand to his face; it stings a little as some sweat gets into his eyes when he rubs the sleep out of them.

The alarm clock says it's a bit after four o'clock; not quite the usual waking hour at the camp, but Alan knows he won't find any more sleep for this night.

He quickly dresses and steps out of his tent. Billy's tent is right next to his and Alan pauses on his way down the small hill. He stands in the dark and listens but he hears nothing. He never opens the flap and looks in, though, never. (It feels like he's punishing himself by not looking, by not making sure Billy's asleep instead of bloody and ripped to pieces. Like he doesn't yet deserve to see Billy's all right; doesn't deserve to see Billy.)

With a quiet sigh, Alan heads down to the dig site, a flashlight and the pale light of dawn making sure he doesn't trip over any rocks and starts the day off with a broken bone or two. (He tells himself that there's nothing lurking in the shadows, that he won't be attacked from behind. Some days, he really believes it.)

Alan works meticulously for an hour in which nothing but his brush and the small fraction of a skeleton he can see in the beam of his flashlight exist. The clanging of pots and some hushed chattering bring him back to the present. Sound travels far down the valley and Alan has no problem hearing the group of students delegated for kitchen duty quietly talking among themselves.

He groans a little when he stands; he isn't the one who brought home a set of injuries with long-term consequences, but his muscles protest as if he were. Billy always laughs at him when Alan complains about his knees or his shoulder or his back, but he makes sure Alan doesn't do much heavy lifting.

He gets himself a mug of coffee and a bagel and eats standing up, waiting for his stiff back muscles to relax. The sun is coming up over the mountains and more and more people come out of the tents and head for the latrines. Their next stop will be at breakfast, and Alan quickly refills his mug with fresh coffee before there's a line.

The flap of Billy's tent is thrown back five minutes later and Billy steps out, rubbing the side of his neck with one hand and using the other to shield his eyes against the low glare of the sun.

Alan almost smiles at the sight of him, relief and attraction and guilt mixing to form a nameless emotion he can't express.

A group of students (visiting the site for three days; in Alan's opinion whoever thought it to be a good idea to let the university send up these loud, obnoxious brats really ought to get fired) passes Billy on the way to breakfast. He glances past Alan into the tent and grimaces. Alan half turns and sees that same group of students and some of the regular members of the dig all swarming around the coffee pots.

Grinning a little, Alan holds out his hand, silently offering Billy his coffee. Billy accepts with a smile, their hands brushing slightly as Alan passes the mug. He's standing close enough that Alan can feel the heat of his body, see the faint scars on his skin where his neck and arms aren't covered by clothing.

But Billy is okay and Alan wonders why his heart still feels like it's breaking every time Billy smiles at him.

<<<

Oh yeah, ever since that little trip to Isla Sorna, Alan Grant has a whole 'nother set of nightmares to keep him awake at night.

He's no longer haunted by the foul-smelling hot breath of the T-Rex against his face, the bone-chilling fear he'd felt when he'd been face-to-face with the creature so large and deadly and unforgiving that his heart had nearly given out right then. He doesn't have visions of Lex facing the T-Rex panicked and alone, of Timmy hanging on to the fence before the electrical charge propels him several feet away and to the ground, technically dead already.

He no longer hears the sound of rustling leaves or the incessant beeping of the fence alarm going off, he doesn't hear the hissing and spitting sounds of the raptors, or the booming sound of the T-Rex' steps and the accompanying tremor of the earth.

Currently his nightmares all start and end with Billy until all he can see was Billy's face. They start with his face as he checks his gliding chute, slowly backing away from Alan. He hears his own voice, yelling for Billy to stop, to stay. The fear he feels, tripled in his dreams, as he races up the steps, trying to catch up to Billy, to keep him from jumping. In his dreams he feels his hand brush against Billy's leg, and then Billy's slipping, sliding out of his reach, opening the chute as he goes over the guardrail. And all he can do is watch, watch as Billy glides towards his death.

In some dreams Billy's chute never opens, or there is a huge tear in it, or Billy never has a chute in the first place but jumps anyway. Those dreams end with Alan gasping for air, sitting up in bed to look at the alarm clock's angry red letters that tell him it's 1:51 or 3:04 or 4:26, and he knows he won't get another minute of sleep until he sees Billy limp out of his tent, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the low early morning sun.

In some dreams the Pteranodons come down on Billy right after he's jumped, not even giving him the chance to pull the line and open his chute. Sometimes they just make sure he falls like a rock, watching with those damn satisfied smirks on their faces, turning back to laugh Alan in the face.

Alan doesn't like to think about the fact that sometimes the Pteranodons change from the comparably simple animals that they are into overwhelming and impossible shadows, become less tangible than the fog that hung over the aviary that day, and Alan has to watch as Billy suffocates in darkness.

The worst dreams are those in which Billy turns to him for help, his eyes a mixture of accusation and adoration, and all Alan feels is this desperate helplessness as he watches Billy go down without Alan being able to help him.

Oh yeah, a whole 'nother set of nightmares.

End.


End file.
